New York: The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum

Intrepid is a retired carrier, which now makes up the impressive settings of one of New York’s most interesting sights, at least if you ask me. The carrier served in World War II and later during the Cold War, before it was saved from scrapping and became a floating museum at Pier 86 in Hell’s Kitchen, New York.

On the upper deck, there’s an entire zoo of all sorts of military planes and helicopters. Even for non-aviation geeks, the sight of the planes against the backdrop of the Manhattan skyline is impressive, so bring out your cameras and smartphones, because here’s something your Instagram feed doesn’t want to miss.

If you’re more Star Trek than Top Gun, you’ll love the Space Shuttle Enterprise exhibition. Enterprise is a space shuttle prototype developed by Nasa in 1976. It never made it into space, but it completed a number of test flights, before it was returned to NASA’s research facilities.

On the pier next to Intrepid, there’s a British Airways Concorde. I think Concorde is one of the coolest things ever made (I even have a book about it), so after we were done with the plane spotting on Intrepid, we went to have a closer look. Supersonic commercial flight, how awesome is that!

Tickets (General Admission) to Intrepid are 33USD and includes Space Shuttle Pavilion and all temporary exhibitions. The tickets also give you access to submarine Growler, but there was a bit of a line, when we were there, and we were more interested in the airplanes, so we didn’t go to see it.

The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, W 46th St & 12th Ave, Hell’s Kitchen, New York